WORK THERAPY: Learning To Tune Out from the Office
Q: I'm feeling anxious. It is difficult to keep up with all of the text messaging, BlackBerry, emails, cellphones, etc. There is never enough time to answer everything!
A: When you buy a car, you don't ask the person who sold it to you when to drive it. Nor do you get your butcher's opinion on when to serve the prime rib. The rules for when you need to have your office cellphone or BlackBerry on, however, aren't as obvious. When you accept an electronic device from your employer, you need to find out when you are expected to use it. Or else you'll lose sleep wondering whether you should reply to the email from the Milan office as soon as it arrives at 2 a.m.
Every workplace has different expectations for how frequently employees should check their email or when they can shut off their cellphones. Determining what is normal for your office will help you gauge whether you can leave your computer home for the weekend or if you need to cart it to the beach.
"Try to have a good understanding of what your corporate culture is," says Thomas Plante, the chair of the psychology department at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif., who also has a clinical practice in Silicon Valley. "There may not be an industry norm but there may be a company norm or a project norm."
If in doubt, talk to your supervisor or senior colleagues, says Jeffrey L. Brown, an instructor in the psychology department at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass.
If you learn that your boss expects you to check in every night as late as 10, and you're the kind of person who likes to stop thinking about work as soon as "American Idol" comes on, you should consider whether this is the right office atmosphere for you.
"You have to think about what kind of lifestyle you want to have," says Dr. Plante. "You may find yourself in a career that's not suitable for the kind of life you want to lead and the person you want to be."
Assuming the expectations make sense to you, your next step should be to let people know when you may not be reachable outside of those times. Set a limit for yourself for when you want to be incommunicado. Say, eight o'clock. Then leave a polite message on your voicemail or craft an automatic email response that says you won't be around after eight. Or tell people you will no longer be answering your cellphone after a certain time but will be checking your email.
"It's important to give people some clue to what your availability is going to be and the mechanism you prefer to use," says Dr. Plante. "Make people understand the rules of the game so they don't get frustrated or disappointed when their expectations aren't realized."
Still, picking an hour to disappear and stating it isn't the hardest part of creating some distance between you and your Treo. The more difficult task is actually tuning out at the appointed time and ignoring any nagging guilt you have over not being available.
"Look at the reason you're telling yourself it's not okay," says Dr. Brown. "What proof do you have that you're going to get negative feedback if you're not answering? That's the fortune-telling error, when you falsely predict what's going to happen."
Most people fear something will go awry when their screens go dark because they think it's absolutely necessary for them to be involved in every decision, because others can't handle it or because, if they do, you might start to feel irrelevant.
"The thought is, I'm indispensable; only I can make that decision," says Kenneth Pelletier, a professor at the University of Arizona School of Medicine in Tucson, Ariz., and author of a book about managing stress at work. "And that's usually not true. More people get copied on a message than need to be. This leads to micromanaging. You have to recognize that you're not indispensable. If you disengage from your emails for whatever reason for a couple of days, you'll see that many of the things where you would have jumped in on are things that get resolved in 24 to 48 hours." During which time you can prepare that prime rib.
Kayleen Schaefer
职场问答：学会对工作说“不”
（编者按：职场问答栏目旨在解答读者有关工作压力和焦虑方面的问题。）
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问：我现在感到非常焦虑。难以应付没完没了的短信、黑莓(BlackBerry)手机、电子邮件、手机，等等。总是有处理不完的事情！
双语阅读
? WORK THERAPY: Learning To Tune Out from the Office答：当你买车时，你肯定不会问销售人员应该在什么时间开。至于何时做你的牛排大餐，你也不会在买肉时征求屠夫的意见。不过，何时需要保持办公手机或者黑莓手机开机却没有一定之规。当你从老板那里接过电子设备时，你就需要问一下，他们希望你如何待命。否则你就可能难以入睡，考虑是否需要立即回复凌晨两点收到的来自米兰办公室的电子邮件。
每一家公司对于员工应多久检查一次电子邮件，或何时可以关闭手机都有不同的期望。掌握正常的办公规律有助于你判断是否可以把电脑留在家里出去度周末，还是需要随身带著它。
圣克拉拉大学心理学系教授托马斯?普兰特(Thomas Plante)说，应该充分了解所在企业的文化，这可能不会是行业统一规则，但却可能是某个公司或者某个项目的规矩。普兰特同时还在硅谷从事行为诊断。
哈佛医学院心理学系讲师杰弗里?布朗(Jeffrey L. Brown)说，如果有不了解的地方，可咨询主管或高级职员。
如果你得知老板希望你能在每晚10点时检查一下邮件，而你是《美国偶像》(American Idol)一开演就不再考虑工作的人，那你就要考虑一下这样的工作方式是否适合你了。
普兰特说，你应该想想你想要哪种生活方式。你可能发现自己的工作同你想要的生活和希望成为的人不相符。
如果别人期待你何时开机这一点对你很重要，那么下一步你就应该告诉人们，你在哪些时间之外无法被联系。你可以设定一个你不想被打扰的时间，比如8点钟。然后在语音邮件中留下礼貌的信息，或拟就一封自动回复电子邮件，说明你在8点钟以后不在。或告诉别人你在某个时间后不会接听手机，但会检查电子邮件。
普兰特说，重要的是让人们对你的作息时间有所了解。让人们清楚游戏规则，这样在他们的预期没有实现时就不会不满或失望。
不过，选择一个时段消失并通知大家，这并不是摆脱手机束缚的过程中最难做到的一点。更难做到得是在指定的时间里关掉手机，并不在乎无法被找到的那种负疚感。
布朗说，总想著要找到一个不接电话的理由不见得是件好事。你怎么能证明如果你不接电话一定得到负面的反馈？当你先入为主地预计将发生什么事情时，这是一种宿命式的错误。
许多人都担心如果人们找不到他们，就会出乱子，因为他们认为所有决策都离不开他们，别人无法处理，或如果别人处理好了，你就开始感到被弃之一边了。
亚利桑那大学医学院教授肯尼思?佩尔蒂埃(Kenneth Pelletier)说，这种想法认为：我是不可或缺的；只有我才能做出决策。这种想法通常是错误的。有的信息完全没有必要发给那么多人。这牵扯到一个微观管理的问题。你应该认识到你并非是不可缺少的。如果你不管出于什么原因在几天内没有处理电子邮件，你就会发现，如果你在的话可能要参与的许多事情都在24小时或48小时内得到了圆满解决。佩尔蒂埃曾写过一本关于解决工作紧张的书。
Kayleen Schaefer
